When all is lost
by Aeternum
Summary: Written before the release of the last book, a one-shot of what happened after the final battle.


Harry Potter sat in at his ancient desk, his memoirs strewn around him. A lock of dark hair fell rakishly over one eye as he stared unmoving at the pictures on the shelf.

Hermoine, he and Ron clowning around when they were still at Hogwarts. The old photo of his parents he acquired along the way.

Hermoine and Ron's marriage, where they keep sweetly holding hands and looking deep into one another's eyes.

A photo of he and Ginny, just before he would have graduated Hogwarts. She smiles in the dappled sunlight, tossing her head back in laughter as he grins sheepishly. Every smile on that sweet face of hers makes him ache somewhere near his heart.

Even now, only her screams echo in his head. He can't hear her laugh or remember the sound of her voice. Even the sweetest dreams of her are nightmares now.

Voldemort, the most powerful dark wizard the magical community had ever known, had taken almost everyone he had ever loved. His parents, Albus Dumbledore and Ginny.

His memory throws him back to that instant where he faced down Voldemort for the last time. He could feel his hand trembling as he stood, face to face with the man that had cost him everything. And at the last moments, when it came down to the last seconds of this terrifying duel, Ginny appeared and was caught in the crossfire.

He wailed quite uncontrollably and ran to her, but as her blood flowed out from under her, he knew it was the end. She smiled gently at him one last time and went limp in his arms. He wept great wracking sobs as Voldemort cackled across the room.

"She was just a filthy Muggle-lover."

Hate surged through Harry like a conduit. It flashed viciously in his eyes and he stood, his grief crackling in the space between them. With Ginny's blood covering him, he faced Voldemort with nothing to lose.

He shakes his head to rid himself of those moments, but still the hate lingers. Voldemort is gone but nothing can take away the unfinished anger. In his heart, Harry knows he's become what he was afraid to be. He knows himself to be no better than Voldemort.

Again he looks to his photos. He thinks of his friends. Hermoine is one of the youngest ever headmasters at Hogwarts and has her own groundbreaking projects she works on in her own time. Ron is now head of the ministry of magic, following in his father's footsteps but going further than everyone's hopes and dreams for him. Even Neville was an Auror, despite his childhood inadequacies. He turned out to be one-in-a-million and greviously underestimated by Voldemorts death eaters.

Harry clutched his head. The migraines were back. The pain almost always made him black out, the same intensity that lit up his scar when Voldemort finally died. His one last punishment to Harry, this remainder of agonising pain. Over the top of the pain always came the ringing in his ears that sounded strangely like the keening of Mrs Weasley upon discovering her daughter had died.

No one blamed him. No one ever mentioned his name with anything but pride. But he blamed himself. That's what kept his days and nights bleak, featureless, without colour. He had travelled the world over and seen many amazing things but could not free himself of his hate or the guilt which compounded it. Too many people had died for his sake.

Harry had no reason to go on. There was nothing for him. He had no arch-nemesis. Sometimes in his depression, he saw that everything needs a balance of light and dark and how he might have destroyed that balance. In moments of clarity, he wondered if he might have become the darkness.

His wand-tip rested gently against his chest, just at the point of the breastbone. He thought it would be appropriate to go out the way Ginny had, on the point of that dreadful curse. He clenched his hand tightly about his wand, closed his eyes and screamed the incantation.

There was no pain. Only the blackness seeping in. So warm and comforting. As his world went grey, he saw those people he loved who had moved on, looking down from the pictures on his wall as if preparing to greet him on the other side.

He looked at them, smiled and whispered, "I'm coming." 


End file.
